Ruthless ~ 58!

All that remains is the epilogue! :'D

~ 58 ~

“Attack!” The people below charged the walls, but Joe didn’t bother to watch as arrows were traded, ladders were knocked away from the wall, and fireballs burned people to charcoal. No… he was watching the rear of the lines, where ever more people were running through the active rituals. 

He was waiting for it… it wouldn’t be too long now… *pop*.

The sound was soft at this distance, but since the fires had burned out and smoke had begun moving upward instead of settling, a red mist clearly showed where the first victim of what would become known as the ‘Corpse Plague’ died. The sound of vomiting and screams started coming from the distance. Joe winced: the sound of hundreds of people puking at the same time, over and over, was going to stay with him for a very long time.

One thing that Joe appreciated was that the ritual actually killed very quickly. Mostly. The low-level people had far less than two hundred health, so with twenty health per second vanishing, they died in under ten seconds. Most fell in under five. Hysteria began to set in, but there was nowhere to run. In under half a minute, the demands of victory, war cries, or random babble all changed to begging to be let in before whatever that was got to them.

Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless II. Show details? 

Joe swiped away the message and looked at the panicked crowd below. The doors stayed shut, of course. There was no way anyone was letting that in; orders be abyssed. If there was one positive note, it was that the sight was blocked out by the red mist swiftly, and all retching and popping sounds stopped soon after that. An eerie silence set in, but no one wanted to be the first to break it. Joe made the choice after a few long minutes. He turned and waved to get the attention of anyone who he could see.

“That red mist is going to stay in place for days. If you touch it, you’ll die from it. You’ll also make it stronger. Right now, if you have less than…” Joe checked the active ritual for information, eighty point two… eighty-one… eighty-three…. Celestial…”

Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless III. 

He gulped and shook his head. “If there really was a million people out there, and this doesn’t go anywhere else… we will be trapped in here for sixty-nine hours. Anyone below one hundred and eighty constitution will catch that, and it lasts for ten hours. Twenty health a second for ten hours. No one goes out or comes in!”

The last sentence had been a bellow, and no one dared to let out a single peep. “On the plus side, it has now been three minutes. Anyone caught in there with less than nine hundred health has died. In fifteen minutes, I’ll ask Aten to let most of you stand down. For what it's worth…”

“We won.” Joe started walking down the stairs heavily, and no cheers rang out. Everyone wanted to win, but no one wanted to win like that. Starting over would have been preferable.

Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless IV.

Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless V. 

The next few days passed quietly. It was tight quarters, but everyone was able to stay fed thanks to the greenhouse, clean thanks to the bathhouse, and calm thanks to the sea of red mist that hovered a foot above the ground as far as the eye could see. Joe had trained his stats as well as he could the last few days, and spent some time drawing up new spell scrolls. He didn’t learn any of the spells, not just yet. He wanted to be ready for what came next, and he knew that people were still dying.

Guild Title has reached maximum rank! Utterly Ruthless has transformed into a new title: Ruthless.

Ruthless. When attacking a guild, town, army, or defending those, damage dealt is increased by 25%, damage received is reduced by 25%. There is now a 50% chance of an item dropping from a slain enemy when they are attacking areas owned by your guild, and it is automatically collected into the guild vaults. If no guild vault is present, the loot will accumulate in the Guild Hall.

Joe was once more standing on the walls, staring out at the sea of red. The ritual was about to end, and nine days had passed. That meant that at least three million people had been caught by the ritual’s effects. He hoped that Ardania still existed. On the positive side, if everyone practiced social distancing and no one added fuel to the mists, it would be over in an hour.

“Everyone!” a voice broke the morning stillness, and Joe startled away from where he had been leaning. Quiet voices had been the norm, so this was shocking after over a week of quiet contemplation. “It is time to make our choice! Over the last few days, I’ve spoken to many of you. If I haven’t had the pleasure yet, allow me to do so now.”

The man hopped onto a table, and continued shouting. “My name is Mr. Banks! I am one of the founders of this guild. This war… was pointless! I had secured a deal that would have left us in an advantageous position with all the poor souls that were wiped out by the actions and choices of the ‘players’ who staged a coup! Instead of calm negotiations, they ousted the council, and demanded war! Instead of taking care of all of us, and making sure we had safety; they trapped us here for the last fortnight!”

“Banks!” Aten appeared on the scene, looking like a thundercloud. “You have no right to-”

“Oh, but I do.” Banks stated coldly. “Look, I’m level ten now, Guild Commander. It is time for cooler heads to prevail! We need to show this whole kingdom that we are going to make amends! This starts by removing Aten as a leader! I hereby call for a vote of no confidence!”

The council of the Wanderer’s Guild has started a ‘No Trust’ vote to remove Guild Commander Aten from his position! Should he be removed? All Guild members currently waiting on respawn automatically vote ‘abstain’. Yes / No / Abstain.

“This again?” Aten roared as buttons appeared in the view of all currently living members of the guild. “You can’t possibly believe… that they… would…”

The guild has spoken! Abstain: 18,501. Votes to remove Aten as Guild Commander: 268. Votes for him to remain: 231. Aten has been removed as Guild Commander. Per his contract, he will attain the highest position in the guild only in the next Zone, so long as a new guild area is established. If this happens, the guild in Zone one ‘Midgard’ will become a branch guild.

“It’s just good business, Aten. Looks like the handful of people that survived under your iron fist have chosen freedom!” Mr. Banks’ smile was more like a disturbing mask. “We need to prepare to hand over the war criminals to the crown. If they are here, Aten, Joe, Mike, come here now.”

The last word was an order, and Aten was forced to one knee. Joe stayed where he was, staring down at the man who decided to take command. Mr. Banks looked up, and Joe saw just a hint of fear in his eyes. “I know you’re here, I said get down here.”

“That’s a big nope from me.” Joe shook his head. “Just because you removed Aten from his position doesn’t make you the guild leader. Just someone with a power complex.”

Joe’s words made laughter ripple around the area. Banks’ face went red, “I am the only councilman present! By guild contract, I am the highest ranking person in the guild at this moment, which means I set the rules!”

“No, actually.” Joe shook his head. “I was recently promoted to First Elder. Technically, that makes me the highest ranking member of the guild.”

“That’s not a position! Wait… no… Aten would never give someone else as much power as he had in the guild!” Banks sputtered as he pointed a shaking finger at Joe. “That would make a massive breakdown in hierarchy! Aten is… he’d… grab that man!”

“Nobody move.” Joe calmly ordered as a few people started toward him. Everyone stopped, a few of them shocked at this fact. Joe had just proven that he did, indeed, have the authority he claimed to have. “Aten, get up. Aten, what do I need to do to fix this?”

Aten swallowed a few times, nodded at Joe, then started walking toward the Guild Hall. “Paperwork, Joe. Then a new vote after people come back to life. Give me twenty minutes.”

“Do we need him?” Joe waved at Banks. Aten looked at the sweating man coldly, then shook his head ‘no’. “Works for me. Over the wall he goes.”

“S-stop! You can’t murder me like this!” Banks looked at the looming wall as people grabbed him and pulled him toward the edge of the wall. “It’s not legal!”

“Hold on.” Joe walked over and looked Banks in the eye. “You really are this dense? This isn’t about business, or a game, or legality. This is survival. What we are all striving for isn’t luxury. It's abyssal… survival. For that, this guild has proven that we are willing to be Ruthless. Throw him over.”

There was a soft *pop*, and the ritual counter went up by a fraction of a second: too little to matter.

***

Days later, Joe once again stood before the Royal Court, waiting to see if his actions would cause him to be locked away. He wasn’t cuffed this time, and there was a large group that was going to be tried all at the same time. He was led in, and found himself standing next to Aten, Mike, Hannah, and Big_Mo. There were a slew of other people that he didn’t recognize as well, but he was less concerned for them.

The King sighed, and the room seemed to freeze from that single exhalation. “Over three million dead in under half a day. Thousands more perished due to starvation and fear of the Corpse Plague. Mass rioting was averted at least, but for that… we look back at the fear.”

His head shifted, and it felt like Joe had been punched in the gut as his diaphragm refused to move and allow him to breathe in. “Tell me what happened on your end first, Joe. I know you, and your character. You know mine. I need the unvarnished truth.”

“Why does he get to-” 

The King cut off the new voice with a light hand wave. “Marquis Floodwater, wait your turn.”

Aten stepped forward. “As Joe’s superior, all of this falls upon me. Joe was only doing what he could to patch our ship as we sunk, he did nothing wrong or even out of the ordinary.”

“I was the one who authorized the use of a magical reagent that Joe had expressly forbidden others to use, or even know about.” Mike offered, pushing Aten out of the way. “I even paid for it, knowing it was wrong. Please, if anything, the blame falls on-”

“Me.” Hannah interrupted directly, her eyes shining from unshed tears. “I was the one that redesigned the spell and pulled out all the safeties. I was the one that told Mike about the blood, and pulled the item away from where it had been securely stored. I put it into place without Joe knowing.”

The King snorted at the display. “Never before have I seen so many people falling all over themselves to take the blame for a catastrophe of this scale. How about you?”

Big_Mo gulped as he saw the King was focused on him. “No, I agree with Hannah. She kinda sucks to have done all that.”

The room, as well as King Henry were silent, not sure how to react to that after all the pleas for blame. The King coughed and moved on. “I’ll come back to this. Floodwater.”

It didn’t escape anyone that the King hadn’t used the monkier ‘Marquis’. King Henry continued, “You, in direct opposition to my orders of destroying monopolies and the right to work, funded a war against a Noble Guild, a war that cost over fifty million lives… over fruit.”

“F-fifty million? What?” Floodwater shook his head violently, “Your Majesty, I was trying to right the wrong he did to me! He stole the seeds that my family-”

“Has had a monopoly on for centuries. Yes.” The monarch growled. “Do you know what a war totem is, Floodwater?” 

“I can’t be sure of the exact details-”

“No? Because you supplied twelve of them to the ‘war effort’.” The King slumped into his throne. “Does everyone know that a war totem sets a bind point? Yes? Good. Did you know that it is the only bind point that someone can use if the conflict is ongoing, it reduces respawn time to four hours, and forces the bound individual to respawn? All of the people that attacked… Towney McTownface… died to the Corpse Plague, on average, fifty-one times. The constant deaths and forced respawn have left their minds as wreaks, and somehow their characteristics have all fallen below the ten point threshold.”

The room erupted in muttering as the ‘over fifty million’ was made clear, and the suffering was put in perspective. “For your part in this, Floodwater. You lose everything except your life, and I formally reduce all reputation you have with any crown-affiliated faction by four thousand ponts. Your wealth will be used in the rehabilitation of those that suffered due to your actions. Take this beggar out of my court.”

Floodwater was seized and dragged from the room. The King turned to the members of The Wanderer’s guild. “As for all of you, you have a choice. Imprisonment, death until level one, or-”

“Your Majesty.” Joe used every bit of strength and mana he had just to get those words out of his throat while Henry was speaking, then collapsed. The King stopped, and looked at him questioningly. When Joe was able to move again, he pulled himself off the floor and bowed. “Your Majesty, please. So much of this fell on my guild because of my actions alone. I antagonized all of the groups that came after us. The blame for this is mine alone.”

“I came into conflict with architects, and the disenfranchised workers knocked over my walls. I set myself against the assassins, and they came to extract their price in blood. The fruit though, to be fair, that was a gift. Didn’t even know it was gonna be an issue till later. Good call with that one.” Joe cleared his throat and talked over the muttering members of the court.

“The spell used was my own, altered by another because I wanted to do other things, and was too lazy to explain things carefully. The blood used to cause this plague was collected and stored by me. My actions called the attention of these different groups onto us.” Joe looked at his guild members, who were still fighting his words so that he could walk away. “It is hard for me to trust others, but these people have earned my trust, even if a few actions were not advisable. Still, the crimes are my own. Please allow me to be the only one to pay them.”

The room was silent for a long moment. “Your spell, your blood, your actions. I know more of this chain of events than you think I do. I know far more about you than you think I do… and you are correct. Much of this is due to your actions. You just reached your second specialization, correct…? Yes, I see this too.”

“Then here is my ruling.” King Henry’s voice echoed through the room. “Joe, you are hereby exiled from Midgard. You will be able to return to your guild to put your affairs in order, but within twenty-four hours, you will be escorted to the bifrost. You will not be allowed to take anything with you except what you are wearing. I formally reduce all reputation you have with any crown-affiliated faction by eight thousand ponts. Your exile will last a year and a day.” 

“This court rests.”